I Hate My Husband!

Without saying a word, she lay down beside him. He asked her what happened and she told him he will not understand. He insisted and then she went on.

“I hate my husband,” the new mom said and cried to herself.

The entire day she changed diapers, nursed the baby and walked around swaddling the baby in her arms. As she put the baby down for a nap, the doorbell rang and her baby woke up. She then had to repeat the whole process again.

In the evening, her husband returned from work, cool and calm as usual. He kissed the baby and played a little. Her baby wouldn’t leave the dad, so she distracted the baby with some toys while he took a hot shower and had his dinner. She hated him because she was hungry and tired.

After putting baby down to sleep, she took a shower and ate her food in barely ten minutes. As she put the last morsel into her mouth, her husband closed the washroom door behind him with a bang. The baby woke up crying and just wouldn’t stop. She rushed and carried her baby, leaving her plate. She soothed him and nursed him to sleep. She hated him for making her work all over again.

She lay in her bed thinking how she hated her husband. Without saying a word, she lay down beside him. He asked her what happened and she told him he will not understand. He insisted and then she went on.

She said,”I am slogging day and night. I wake up to a crying baby. I cannot visit the washroom. I never eat on time. I grab cold food from the fridge. Today was the worst day. I gave the baby a bath. Soon after, he dug into the bottle of jam you left open on the center table. There was jam all over his body, head to toe and everywhere on the floor. After washing him up and changing his clothes, I sat down to feed him. He resisted. It took an hour for me to feed him. I cry whole day.….”

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She carried on and on.

She hated him for leaving the jam bottle open. The next day, there was still no change in her husband. He did the same things he usually did. He had his breakfast while she fed the baby and played with him on an empty stomach. He gave her a cup of tea with too much sugar in it. She hated him for that. He went to work. He returned cool and calm. Put the trash out. Had dinner and went on with the usual routine.

She wondered if she would ever be able to love her husband again. How could he be so relaxed!!

As the months passed by, her baby was growing. She was now being needed less. She could bathe, eat and sleep better. Her mood started changing. Her tears were changing into laughter.

Her baby would be overjoyed seeing his daddy back home from work. Her husband’s cool and calm face was not irritating anymore. She began to realise that her husband maintained a calm look because it affects the family. While she was distressed, someone had to be around with a sound mind.

Her frosty silence did not allow the new dad to take on the duties. He was a new dad too, and so he was learning too. When the baby would cry, she would be the first one to run and pick up the baby. Not once did she sit back and relax and let her husband do the needful. She complained when he wiped the sterilized bottles with the dirty cloth and that he didn’t put the diapers right. She was put off with him when he gave the baby a bath while she was unwell and did not wash off the shampoo well from baby’s head.

She realized that with time things get better. With time, she understood that he was trying to help her. The excess sugar in her tea and giving the baby a bath though not properly, was all done by him to share the responsibility.

The new mom realized she had to speak up and allow her partner to share the parenting responsibility because the new dad, too, needs a chance to learn.

First published here.

Image source: Shutterstock

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